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The road from West Yellowstone, Montana to Old Faithful Snow Lodge is covered in snow during the winter. In fact visitors must travel on snowmobiles or snow coaches, which are vans or buses with wheels replaced with caterpillar-like tracks, to get to the lodge and to see the geysers.

I stayed overnight at Old Faithful Snow Lodge to get early morning shots of the area, and when I awoke my iPhone read -36 degrees Fahrenheit. I bundled up to go for a walk around the Upper Geyser Basin and had my camera ready.

Photographer’s tip: When taking pictures in the cold, the biggest problem is keeping your hands warm. Most camera bodies are metal and conduct heat right out of your fingers. I prefer to wear a relatively thin pair of liner gloves, making it easy to operate the camera. When I’m not photographing, I have a pair of very large mittens hanging from my wrists. I take off the mittens, shoot pictures quickly, and then slip my hands back into the warm gloves. Soon enough your fingers will feel warm again, and you’ll have incredible images of the wintry landscape.

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